Who has lied in Deflategate? Let's count 'em all -- starting with Roger Goodell

So Roger Goodell lied, a fact proven by the release of Tom Brady's testimony and a fact that shouldn't surprise anyone who began following the NFL before September 2014.

We have been here before. Remember: Less than a year ago, a law enforcement source told the Associated Press that a copy of the Ray Rice elevator video was mailed to the NFL. Goodell and the NFL denied ever receiving such a tape. Somebody was lying.

If you recall, Bill Simmons thought that somebody was Goodell, which earned him a suspension. This past January, Deadspin published a hilarious piece titled "44 Lies Roger Goodell Told In His Press Conference Today." Two of the lies Goodell told were "Nice to meet you" and "Enjoy the weekend."

Yes, there is some humor in the sheer absurdity of Deflategate, but you certainly won't find anyone in Foxborough chuckling. Goodell's lie, as pointed out Tuesday by NESN's Doug Kyed, is one of several in this case.

Why not count 'em all?

In Goodell's 20-page letter announcing his decision to uphold Tom Brady's suspension, the commissioner recalled an exchange from Brady's appeal hearing. Goodell wrote, "In response to the question, 'Why were you talking to Mr. (John) Jastremski in those two weeks?,' Mr. Brady responsed, in sum: 'I think most of the conversations centered around breaking in the balls.'"

This paragraph also appeared in Goodell's decision: "The sharp contrast between the almost complete absence of communications through the AFC Championship Game and the extraordinary volume of communications during the three days following the AFC Championship Game undermines the suggestion that the communications addressed only preparation of footballs for the Super Bowl rather than the tampering allegations and their anticipated responses to inquiries about the tampering."

Unfortunately for Goodell, the testimony from Brady's appeal was unsealed, and the quarterback certainly didn't say he and John Jastremski ONLY talked about the preparation of footballs for the Super Bowl. As Brady testified, "...There was two things that were happening. One was the allegations which we were facing and the second was getting ready for the Super Bowl, which both of those have never happened before." Multiple times, Brady admits to addressing the allegations with Jastremski, the team's assistant equipment manager.

The NFL's obsession with the Brady-Jastremski communication in the days following the Colts game is strange. Really, it makes very little sense. Given the magnitude of the story -- I mean, you had national news anchors parachuting into Gillette to scream at Brady -- isn't it only natural for the quarterback and the equipment staff to have conversation? It would have be super weird if they didn't, right?

Yet Goodell was intent on twisting Brady's words, hoping to make the testimony, which he assumed would remain sealed, seem unbelievable. The bottom line: If NFL had a legitimate case against Brady, twisting his words wouldn't be necessary.

So who else?

Let's see. Well, somebody lied to Chris Mortensen, pedaling fabricated data with the clear purpose of turning a light rainstorm into The Day After Tomorrow. Eleven of the 12 footballs were not under inflated by 2 PSI. One of the footballs was. On one gauge.

And then it seems Chris Mortensen lied. In his tweet, which six months later was deleted, Mortensen attributed the 2 PSI metric to "league sources." During his Monday interview with Dan Le Batard, Mortensen said, "Eleven footballs was consistently verified, as it was in the Wells Report, by the way. The PSI level, one of my sources said 'two pounds under.' And another said 'significantly under inflated.' I used both those terms."

Based on his commentary on the radio, it appears multiple sources did not confirm the 2 PSI figure. Only one did.

Anybody else lie?

Dave Gardi did. The NFL's Senior VP of Football Operations sent a letter to the Patriots informing them that one of their footballs measured at 10.1 PSI, nearly 2.5 pounds below the minimum. This was untrue. Gardi also wrote that all of the Colts balls met the league minimum. Also untrue. Only four were tested, and on one gauge three of them were below 12.5 PSI.

Moving on...

In February, Troy Vincent confirmed that Colts GM Ryan Grigson contacted the league about the Patriots using under inflated footballs. Later in February, Grigson openly admitted that he did so "earlier that week, prior to the AFC championship game." Yet in the unsealed testimony from Brady's appeal, Vincent said the matter "was first brought to my knowledge approximately six or seven minutes remaining in the second half of the AFC Championship Game."

Ditto for Dean Blandino, the NFL's head of officiating. In the days preceding the Super Bowl, Blandino denied the notion of a "sting operation," telling reporters, "The issue came up during the first half, as far as I know. There was an issue that was brought up during the first half, a football came into question, and then the decision was made to test them at halftime."

Can you really believe Blandino was so out-of-the-loop that he didn't receive the pregame memo from Grigson? After watching this all play out, why would you?

Oh, and Ted Wells lied. Or at least was careless and contradicted himself.

In tweets that have since been deleted, New York Post columnist Bart Hubbuch reported that Wells requested a follow-up interview with Jim McNally in part because Wells had only gone through text messages during the 2014 football season and hadn't noticed "The Deflator" text, which was sent in May 2014. But in the Wells Report, he quotes the November 2014 text "Deflate and give somebody that (jacket)," and then he explains, "We planned to discuss this message with McNally during our requested follow-up interview. As noted above, we were unable to do so because counsel for the Patriots refused to make McNally available."

If what Wells' comments to Hubbuch were accurate, he would have already seen the November 2014 text when he interviewed McNally for the first time. Something doesn't line up.

Such is the nature of Deflategate, where the NFL stays on the offensive in a desperate attempt to out duel Tom Brady.

And, oh, Tom Brady. How can we forget him? He's responsible for the fattest lie in this whole thing.

It occurred on the afternoon of January 22, the future Hall of Fame quarterback staring into what seemed like a few hundred cameras positioned to capture what seemed like the most important question-and-answer session in the history of organized sports.

Brady may have told several lies that day. He has maintained that he first found out about the Deflategate allegations during a Monday morning WEEI interview, but it seems fairly inconceivable that no one, not even his West Coast friends, would have texted Brady to give him a heads-up between the time the story broke, just before 1 a.m. EST, and the time he called into the radio station. Insignificant as that detail may appear, it's reasonable to have skepticism about Brady's timeline, and generally, about Brady's innocence.

Here's the thing, though: Unlike Goodell and Blandino and Wells and Vincent and half the league office, there is no absolute proof that Brady has been dishonest at all. About anything.

There's plenty of evidence -- the multimillion dollar investigation into an alleged violation that carries a $25,000 fine, the lack of a pregame PSI log, the heavy-handed punishment in the form of a stern verbal warning when Panthers were caught tampering in a December 2014 game at Minnesota -- to totally disprove that outrageous statement.